9781422288009

Players & the Game Around the World

SUPERSTARS in the WORLD of BASKETBALL

LeBron James Dwyane Wade Kobe Bryant Carmelo Anthony Kevin Durant Chris Paul Dwight Howard

Rajon Rondo Blake Griffin Players & the Game Around the World

SUPERSTARS in the WORLD of BASKETBALL

Players & the Game Around the World

Z.B. Hill

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D

Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

Copyright © 2015 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights re- served. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3101-2 ISBN: 978-1-4222-3110-4 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8800-9

Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress.

Contents

1. A Game That Bridged Differences

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2. How Basketball Spread Around the World

15 25 37 45 46 47 48

3. Global Basketball

4. Basketball’s International Superstars

Series Glossary of Key Terms

Find Out More

Index

About the Author & Picture Credits

Words to Understand

philosophy: A person’s or group’s basic beliefs and ideas. improvise: Perform spontaneously and on the spur of the moment, without follow- ing any set rules. prejudice: Unfairly judging someone you don’t know.

discrimination: Unfairly treating people in different ways based on sex, race, etc. segregated: Separated by race, gender, or religion.

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PLAYERS & THE GAME AROUND THE WORLD

1

A G ame T hat B ridged D ifferences

B asketball started out with peach baskets and ladders. Today, the sport has grown into a major industry and way of life for millions of people all around the world. However, the basics remain: you still have to throw a ball through a hoop! And the game of basketball is still a force to bridge differences between all sorts of different people. THE BIRTH OF BASKETBALL During December of 1891, a Canadian physical educator named James Naismith wanted a sport his students could play during the long winters. Naismith had started out thinking he would be a minister, because he wanted to help others. However, one day while he was watching a football game, he realized the power sports have to shape people. He understood, he said, that “there might be other ways of doing good besides preaching.”

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A sculpture of James Naismith honors his contribution to the world of basketball.

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PLAYERS & THE GAME AROUND THE WORLD

Naismith got a job with the YMCA, which had the same ideas he did about sports. The YMCA’s philosophy was that sports would not only strengthen the bodies of urban kids, but that it would also help them to become better people. Naismith got a job at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, ready to put his ideas into practice. But he ran into problems. The players at the YMCA—young men in their late teens and early twenties—were a rough bunch. They spent a lot of their time at the Y fighting with each other. In the YMCA gymnasium, Naismith tried to channel the men’s restless- ness through indoor soccer and lacrosse. However, these sports weren’t good for playing inside four walls. The games broke down into fights. Players ended up injured, and the walls and floors were damaged. So Naismith decided to invent his own sport. He wanted no roughhousing in his gym— but he did want a challenging sport that would take skill. He also wanted a game that would allow players to improvise . The young men who came to the Y had too many rules in their lives as it was; they needed a place where they could be free to solve their own problems, where their individual intelligence and skill would have room to grow. So Naismith jotted down some simple rules on a sheet of paper, and then he nailed two peach baskets high on the walls of the gym. The first game was played with a soccer ball and nine students on each team (because Naismith had eighteen students). A janitor was convinced to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball each time someone made a basket. Fortunately for the janitor, the first game ended with a score of 1–0. By the time Naismith and his students had played the new game a few times, they Make Connections Several changes have been made since the early days of basketball. Naismith’s players wore wool jerseys with long sleeves and long pants, while today, players wear light jerseys so they can move more easily, with matching colors and individ- ualized numbers so people can recognize them better. Originally, shots from the f ield had to be two-handed. If a player fouled, then anyone on the opposing team could shoot the free throw. Teams also could have any number of players (in 1892, Cornell University had f ifty players on each side) before the number was f ixed at f ive. Despite Naismith’s goals for basketball, many of the early games were a lot rougher than basketball is today, often ending in f ights and arguments. Wire cages were put up around the court to protect the audiences, and to prevent the audience from throwing bottles and other garbage onto the court. Some referees even carried guns as a means of controlling the games!

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A Game That Br idged Di f f erences

One of the early basketball teams played for Michigan State University.

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PLAYERS & THE GAME AROUND THE WORLD

decided to remove the bottoms of the baskets; now the janitor could put away his ladder. Eventually, peach baskets were exchanged for wires, and a backboard was added. The young men loved the game. They stopped fighting with each other and started working together to improve their skills. Basketball gave them something in common, something they all loved. Playing was a lot more fun than fighting. Before long, the sport caught on in other YMCAs across the United States. By 1897, teams of five players were standard. And the game kept spreading. Basketball was on its way. AN ALL-AMERICAN SPORT At first, basketball was most popular as a game city kids could play indoors without a lot of expensive equipment. During the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century, immigrants flooded American cities. Sports—especially basketball— were a way for these immigrants’ children to fit in with other Americans. America’s rural areas had baseball—but the cities had basketball. All sorts of urban or- ganizations had basketball teams, from labor unions to department stores, from factories to churches and synagogues. Basketball thrived in America’s busy cities. It was a way for people from very different ethnic backgrounds to come together. But one group of Americans was left out: black Americans. One man, Edwin Bancroft Henderson, wanted to change that. Henderson had grown up in Washington, D.C., play- ing baseball with his friends in the streets. In high school, he was a football star. Once he Make Connections When women f irst started playing basketball back in the nineteenth century, they were expected to wear f loor-length dresses, petticoats, and slippers. Greater freedom came in 1896 when bloomers were introduced to women at Sophie New- comb College in New Orleans. However, as women’s basketball started to gain popularity, the nation was outraged to see well-bred women pulling hair, yell- ing, and shrieking. Parents, doctors, and physical education teachers were afraid to encour- age girls to play in the sport. Women who did participate were encouraged to wear makeup for the games to help them look more dignif ied. Some teams required that their players wear wigs! However, gradually, women’s basketball became more widely accepted, and by 2002, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) drew in over two million viewers.

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A Game That Br idged Di f f erences

Text-Dependent Questions 1. Who was the inventor of basketball and why did he want to create a new game? 2. What was the janitor’s job in the f irst basketball games? 3. Using the f irst sidebar, list four ways that basketball has changed since it was f irst invented. 4. Explain what Edwin Henderson did for basketball. 5. This chapter states that basketball has the power to unite different types of people. Give two examples of this from the chapter.

graduated, he went on to a two-year college that prepared African Americans to teach in Washington, D.C.’s black schools, and from there he went to a physical training pro- gram at Harvard University. It was at Harvard, in 1904, that Henderson first encountered basketball. Henderson loved the game. At the same time, he began to realize something: the play- ing field was the one place at that time where blacks and whites could be equal, bound by the exact same rules. For Henderson, like for Naismith, sports were more than simply exercise or fun—they were a way to make the world a better place. If blacks could do well at basketball, Henderson reasoned, basketball could cross the terrible walls of prejudice and discrimination . It would prove that white supremacy was a lie. Henderson came home from Harvard and took a job as a gym teacher in one of D.C.’s segregated schools. He started a black sports league, where he introduced his students to basketball. He also played the game himself. Henderson was a great basketball player, and so were his students. But no matter how good black players were, the white community didn’t know about them, because only white players were on the city’s organized leagues. So one night in 1907, Henderson and a friend walked into a YMCA game. They hoped that the YMCA, with its focus on Chris- tian brotherhood, might be able to accept them. Instead, Henderson and his friend were thrown out and told to never return. Henderson realized he would have to form all-black leagues instead. In 1908, he did just that. The leagues played at night in front of crowds who danced to live music after the games. Black Americans loved the new sport. But black basketball and white basketball were two separate things. Henderson was not giving up, though. For the next few decades he not only played and coached basketball—he also wrote books, magazine articles, and letters to newspapers, explaining why blacks should be able to participate in basketball in particular and sports in general.

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PLAYERS & THE GAME AROUND THE WORLD

Make Connections In 2013, Henderson’s achievements in the world of basketball were off icially recognized when he was elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Edwin Hen- derson did even more with his life than f ight for black basketball, though. He also inf luenced many young people in the black community who would go on to shine in other ways. Two of these were Duke Ellington, the great composer and bandleader, and Charles Drew, a surgeon and medical researcher, each of whom proved in their own way that black Americans were just as talented and intelligent as whites. Henderson and his wife were also active in the civil rights movement, f ighting tirelessly against discrimi- nation in housing and education.

Finally, thanks in part to Henderson’s hard work, the basketball world opened up to black players. By 1915, blacks were playing alongside whites on high school and college basketball teams. But it wasn’t as easy to break the racial barriers in professional basketball. Basketball still had a long way to go.

Research Project Find out more about the history of women’s basketball. Use the Internet and the library to f ind the answers to these questions: • What did women’s uniforms look like? Find pictures to illustrate your answer. • When and how did women players’ uniforms change? • What woman was responsible for getting women’s basketball started?

• What were some of the specif ic complaints made about women playing basketball? • What role did basketball play in the women’s rights movement? • What is women’s basketball like today?

Put your answers together into a report.

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A Game That Br idged Di f f erences

boycott: Refuse to buy something or go somewhere out of protest. minorities: Groups of people who are regularly discriminated against. integrated: Allowing all groups of people to participate and not be separated out or left out. Words to Understand

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PLAYERS & THE GAME AROUND THE WORLD